Despite The Obstacles, The Point Is To Leave

Despite The Obstacles, The Point Is To Leave / Cubanet, Jorge Olivera
Castillo
Posted on December 3, 2015

Cubanet, Jorge Olivera Castillo, 3 December 2015 – We Cubans do not
understand closed borders or other measures that try to keep us from
arriving at the border between the United States and Mexico with the
intention of crossing it and taking advantage of the Cuban Adjustment Act.

Without any doubt we prefer to risk being stranded in some of the
transit countries, or die in the attempt. rather then return to the
country where we were born and which we have left as if we had seen a vision

The problem is that the journey is regularly paid for with the sale of
our houses and everything within them and the savings of many years. In
other words, return, forced or voluntary, would be to live literally in
the open-air and without a penny in our pockets.

The efforts to continue the journey through inhospitable places in the
Central American geography, until the desired destination is reached,
can be explained not only in that there is no longer a home to return
to, but also in the fears of facing the consequences, beyond the frowns
of some and the apparent indulgences of others.

Let no one doubt that in the case of return, the members of the Party
and the Communist Youth, along with the political police and their
collaborators, permanent and rented, would be charged with with
distributing the correctives with the usual punctuality.

However, this summary of misfortunes does not interest those who will
continue planning, between insomnia and impatient, the day of the flight
to Ecuador or Columbia. The point is to get away from where the hopes of
a better life have been exhausted, from where it is announced, at least
once an hour, that socialism with the fixes prescribed by the Politburo
will continue forever with no expiration date.

In these times, our compatriots who remain faithful to the proposition
of seeking shelter under the cloak of Uncle Sam, believe that there are
more chances of success by land than by facing the currents of the
Caribbean. Hence, the stubbornness to continue on that route, despite
the obstacles that have been raised in some of the countries along the
way to stop the flow of Cubans.

The truth is that no one knows how this exodus will end, an exodus that
by the numbers is almost as massive as were those of 1965, 1980 and
1994. Meanwhile, the representatives of the island's regime are
determined to prove their innocence in the midst of the tragedy. These
sinister characters, as always, blame the stampede on Washington, on the
economic financial and commercial embargo that it has maintained since
the beginning of the 1960s, and on its migration-favoring Cuban
Adjustment Act.

In conclusion, for the sake of the objectivity missing in the official
media, controlled by the single party, the grounds for a cyclical
phenomenon that has repeated itself in Cuban history for the past 55
years should be noted: the disastrous centralization of the economy, the
hijacking of fundamental freedoms by the State, and the impunity of the
repressive forces in their determination to protect the status of the
power elite who persist in flying, in their own way, the banner of
Marxism-Leninism.

Source: Despite The Obstacles, The Point Is To Leave / Cubanet, Jorge
Olivera Castillo | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/despite-the-obstacles-the-point-is-to-leave-cubanet-jorge-olivera-castillo/